This invention relates to a scroll compressor with a groove connecting between two compression chambers at a point in the compression cycle prior to communication to the discharge port, but after the chambers have been sealed.
Scroll compressors are becoming widely utilized for refrigerant compression applications. As known, interfitting orbiting and fixed scroll wraps define a plurality of compression chambers. Typically, two compression chambers are concurrently sealed and moved through intermediate pressures to a discharge port. The compression chambers are not always equally spaced about a center line of the scroll compressor, and thus there may be some asymmetry to the forces from the compressed fluid.
Moreover, it is possible that one of the two chambers may have a slightly higher pressure than the other. This could occur as an example if one of the two chambers has a higher volume of fluid entrapped on a particular cycle. Eventually, the two chambers merge together and communicate with the discharge port. If there is a pressure imbalance at communication, there may be mixing losses as fluid in the higher pressure chamber mixes with fluid in the lower pressure chamber. Such mixing losses decrease the efficiency of the scroll compressor. Further, the differential pressures can result in vibration, noise, and, for example, excessive loading of the anti-rotation coupling which holds the scroll members in alignment.